


Dismiss the Invisible

by returntosaturn



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Newt's travels, Obscurus (Harry Potter), Sudan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 05:23:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9864812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/returntosaturn/pseuds/returntosaturn
Summary: “Do you know?” he asked, while she picking through the tangled brush at the bank of the river, “Where I live, there is a body of water bigger than this. With sand and shells and water as far as your eye can see. So very different than this dry land.”He knows she cannot understand, but she peeks up at him every so often as if she is listening. He scratches at a mosquito fluttering over his arm where he’s rolled up his sleeves.“Would you like to see it? The air smells lovely…so tinged with salt that its almost sweet. It is called the sea.”(Recounts Newt's travels and encounters with the girl in the Sudan, Newtina bit at the end)





	

**Author's Note:**

> "Your darkness will be rewritten  
> Into a work of fiction, you'll see  
> As you pull on every ribbon  
> You'll find every secret it keeps...
> 
> You are an artist  
> But your heart is your masterpiece  
> And I'll keep it safe"
> 
> \- I'll Keep You Safe, Sleeping at Last

A native that called himself Tayo met him and escorted him from Egypt, on foot, and then on mule. Days later, they arrived in the tiny Sudanese village, sun dried and thirsty. Tayo showed him a river to drink from and fill his canteen, and Newt finally got up the courage to ask about this girl that had been rumored since his arrival in the north of this continent.

He had been sought out by the Egyptian sect of their fractured Ministry, reputation preceding him much more elaborately than he’d describe it himself, and asked of any expertise with this sort of magic. Regrettably, he informed them that any research on the topic was limited, but he’d be willing to meet the child and share any helpful information he might find.

He had not realized the stigma they held, and that observing her behavior—perhaps even trying to find a way to detach the host—would rely on his singular efforts.

When he’d asked Tayo to moderate, or even just act as a translator, he’d shaken his head furiously.

“She is a frightening girl. And frightened. Her parents have died long ago because of illnesss,” he explained in his decent but syntactically fractured English. “Now she is fed by the village women, but everyone is wary of her powers. She stays by herself, to protect herself and the others.”

“That’s not exactly helpful,” Newt contended, balancing his case in one hand, and watching Tayo peripherally while they trekked the hard clay ground that comprised the landscape of this country. “To my mind, isolation is the last thing she needs.”

Tayo peered uncertainly, pausing. He turned to face him. “I should not even be speaking with you, Newt Scamander. I am only doing so now because you say you can help our village. Magic…these things…they are evil to our ways of living. You must understand this. The government that summoned you…we do not live peaceably. I would not wish to insult you, but you must see that this is not friendly.”

Newt gazes over the flat, rich brown of their land, spotted in low shrubs and spindly trees. Their huts are mushroom-shaped masterpieces of dried grasses and mud. He had seen far more stunning beauty in other parts of the world, but what struck him as unique about this land was its people; harsh and blunt as their environment. He looked back to Tayo who is waiting patiently.

He nodded. “I understand.”

He did not. Not really. But it was not the first time his...kind…had been unwelcome in any part of the world. It was not the first occurrence of magical and non-magical people not ceding to live in peace. It was, however, the first time he’d been asked to intervene in the midst of a rift like this, and find a mutually beneficial outcome. It was not a position he desired to be in, but politics all too often seemed to coincide with his work. He’d grown to bear the burden of it.

He was pointed in the direction of the girl’s shelter, and left to his own.

It was a rather large tent for one young girl to have to herself, he thought. But then the villagers probably assumed that more space was best to keep the girl appeased and quiet. He had not been given much information about her behavior, other than the presence of an Obscurus force that had manifested and caused more fear than destruction amongst the people. No one had ever been harmed, no one targeted. In the scant amount of research there was, it was generally believed that Obscurials were at their most powerful when threatened. Perhaps the people had already discovered this, or inferred it at the very least.

He tugged back the flap, ducking his way inside.

There is a scuttling sound, the scratch of bare feet in the dirt.

“Hello?” he asked into the darkness.

There was no vocal sign of life, but there was a thrumming of something heavy and bleak. He was vaguely reminded of what it had been like to be in the presence of the Dementors he’d encountered in Scotland, but this is rather like ire, not despair. It was abandonment.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to help you,” he said, setting his case down on the hard dirt floor.

Breeze whisped through the thin gaps in the tent, the only source of sunlight and circulating air.

He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to mop at his brow. “If you won’t come out, I shall wait here until you’re ready.”

He sat, folding himself crosslegged, and pulled a sketchbook from the case. He picked up where he’d left off, adding strokes to his most recent illustration: the Erumpent’s profile.

He had found her in Egypt, tethered to a pair of trees. There was no question about her rescue. He waited until dusk when the owner dozed off to retrieve her, though luring her and fitting her into the case had been no easy feat at first.

He traced out the slope of her horn, the wrinkle of her eyes.

As expected, it did not take long to elicit a curious shuffle from the corner of the tent. He smirked to himself, continuing his sketch, pretending as if he hadn’t heard.

Soon, in his peripheral, the figure of a young girl, thin as a rail tie, scooted herself closer. Her hair was a long tangle, skin the shade of long-steeped rooibos, eyes set bright in the streak of sunlight. She was small. Too small. Her eyes searched him, glaring. He knew she must be counting their differences; a strange, bow legged white man welcoming himself in with little precedence.

“Hello, there.” He smiled.

She shied, inching back.

“That’s alright. As I said, I’m here as a friend. No need to be frightened.”

He was talking too much, but he suspected she had not been talked to enough.

“You may sit and watch, if you like.” He went back to his sketch. Taking a bit of time to get used to one another’s company would be mutually beneficial, he thought, and would help to give him a sense of her abilities.

Before long, she reached over to pluck the charcoal from his fingers. He drew back his hand.

“Now. This is mine to use. I’ve got others, but you should ask politely. For now, I will let them to you.”

He folded open the case, digging around a bit before pulling out another, clean and unused piece of charcoal and tugged a loose leaf from his sketchbook. He latched the case closed to give her a surface to scribble on.

And she scribble she did.

She began by dabbing the utensil against the sheet, testing its texture. Then she drew long, looping lines without pattern, over each other until a mass of scribbles encompassed the outer portion of the paper.

“Interesting,” he remarked, and the girl shrank back all over again.

Slowly, he reached to turn the drawing to look at it from her perspective. He looked back to her fierce stare, unflinching against this new stranger. There was a small little cluster of markings she’d made the center that appeared to be arms, legs, and a body. Newt pressed his lips together firmly.

“Hmm…I wonder if you could tell me your name,” he thought aloud. He placed a hand on his shoulder, giving himself a pat. “Mine is Newt. Newt Scamander, to be exact, but that’s probably a bit difficult to pronounce, isn’t it? Newt,” he repeated. “Who are you? What’s your name?”

She was concentrated on the bit of charcoal in her hands, focused on the stains it left on the tips of her fingers.

“Sabra,” she answered easily without looking away from her study.

“Sabra,” he repeated. “How lovely. Well, I haven’t got many things young ladies such as yourself might like, but…”

Wandless Magic had become increasingly difficult since his schooling. It was a characteristic common to all young wizards and witches when their magic was new. At their core, wands were meant to allow a wizard to bend his raw magical ability to be managed and controlled in an organized fashion by the bearer. But simple things were done easily enough. If he concentrated…

He gave his fingers a twitch until a small, blunt, white daisy was pinched between them.

Sabra’s eyes widened.

Newt grinned. “That’s right. Its magic. Magic is good. You may take it, if you like.”

She was staring now, little mouth open, something new and bright building in her eyes.

“Yes,” he said, yielding the flower when she reached for it. “You aren’t the only one. Did you think so? There are many like us, and we are taught to use our magic properly. Perhaps you can learn the same.”

There was a rustle outside the tent, and Sabra clasped her flower between two hands to hide it, turning from the wider shaft of light that filtered in. A bowl was set at the opening, a hand darting in and back out again.

He watched Sabra unfold, hurrying for the bowl and settling it into her lap to tuck in with nothing more than her bare fingers.

He looked on, the familiar, inevitable stir tightening in his chest as it did with any creature he’d encountered. But this girl was not, and could not be thought of on that same logic. This was something entirely different, and he had not intended on combating the norms of ostracism like this. And yet, unfortunately, it seemed to prove itself necessary.

-O-O-

He entered her shelter the next morning, clutching his hand glass and a boar brush. She howled through the entire affair of tending her hair, but the way the light played through the glass soothed her enough for him to plait it into as rudimentary a braid as he could manage. He coaxed her outside, and hand in hand they made way for the river where they studied the insects and grasses through his glass. She was not, by nature, the frightened and angry child the natives had made her out to be. She was gentle, curious, and mild. It was not always easily seen, but it was a great reward to the task of drawing it out when she would smile or laugh aloud.

“Do you know?” he asked, while she picking through the tangled brush at the bank of the river, “Where I live, there is a body of water bigger than this. With sand and shells and water as far as your eye can see. So very different than this dry land.”

He knows she cannot understand, but she peeks up at him every so often as if she is listening. He scratches at a mosquito fluttering over his arm where he’s rolled up his sleeves.

“Would you like to see it? The air smells lovely…so tinged with salt that its almost sweet. It is called the sea.”

“See?” She held up his hand glass to her eye, mimicking the word he’d repeated to her earlier as they inspected a fly’s wings.

He chuckled. “Two different words, but they sound the same. Its called a homonym.”

She was no longer listening, back to inspecting, and he watched intently while she explored the landscape, using the glass as a monocle of sorts. She peered at the thin tree bark, a weed, the texture of the dirt, but when she strayed to inspect the thatch of the hut nearest the river, the woman wringing clothes outside reached to box at her ears.

Sabra ducked, pinning her hands to her head in defense, and the telltale black mist of her magic swirled.

Newt ran, making to grab for her, but the force stretched in a palpable black cloud, knocking him and the village woman backwards off their feet, and splashing the wash water in her basin to soak the cracking earth.

And as soon as it had happened, it was over. Sabra was on her knees in the dirt, hands clasped over her ears.

He ignored the woman’s shouting behind him and was quick to the girl’s side, crouching before her.

She shrank away from his outstretched hand, shuddering.

“It’s alright. It’s alright. It’s only me. Are you hurt?”

He tried to tilt her face upwards, but she was rigid. He persisted, trying to loosen her stance, but she turned to nip at his fingers, narrowly missing.

He managed to loop his arms around her and haul her to his hip. Once he was on two feet, the woman was at his face, waving her finger and shouting what he was sure were curses in their native tongue. He dodged, making a bee line for Sabra’s makeshift shelter, ignoring the weight of the other villagers’ stares, peeking from their huts in their wake.

-O-O-

She sat unmoving all evening, until he could manage to press a few spoonfuls of rice into her mouth before she turned away from him for good, curled into herself on the small mat they had afforded her to sleep on.

The loathing and shame was heavy in the air.

He retrieved an oil lamp from within his case and lit it to fill the edges of the tent, an attempt to make her relax that was met with no results.

If he was not careful, it was almost as if the demonstrable emotion has the power to sink into his own skin, and he found himself ruminating, disgusted with what they have allowed her to become. A suffering shell to an energy she could have sequestered for its good, now eating at her for its survival.

His journal was open in his lap, pencil in hand.

_The obscurus force not only harnesses control from magical energy its host possesses, but their emotions. It leads me to believe there may be an integral link between the two that would not be able to be severed and allow either to survive._

He tried to find words for more, but instead found his thoughts too personal for recounting to his field notes. What life would she have had? What could she still be capable of? If she’d developed shame in her own magic, it was unlikely that shame could ever be peeled away enough to allow her sufficient training. She would constantly be faced with overcoming herself to keep her magic contained, and he wondered if even mentoring in how to curb it might cease it forever.

She was not a creature to be tended; there was no room for a girl to accompany him on his travels. And yet he could not accept leaving her to this tent and this world that would only let her waste. Perhaps there was someone he could write to, consult with, with experience in harnessing magic like this.

He failed to coax her to lay down and sleep, so he went back to his own bedroll and settled himself, letting the lamp light burn through the night.

-O-O-

The woman was found dead the following morning.

The time to write to his contacts was lost when a horde of villagers bellowed at the opening of the tent, knives and shanks in hand. Newt staved them off by asking Tayo to translate his intentions, but the chief of their village demanded she be taken away.

They had harbored her and appeased her for too long, Tayo explained, and they wished to be rid of her and Newt himself before more destruction was caused.

He asked for another day, just one. Just twenty-four hours to set affairs in order and make a plan, attempt to explain to her exactly what was happening.

Somewhere along the way, he knew, they had forgotten that Sabra was still just a child. Not an animal. Still deserved to learn and experience. Not to be fed only to be kept alive, but cared for. He could not be the one to take the responsibility, but it seemed now it was left to no one but him to bear.

-O-O-

_Ministry of Magic, Britain_  
_c/o Department of International Magical Cooperation  
_ _Jane Elsinore_

_Ms. Jane Elsinore,_

_I do apologize for this unsolicited communication. I assure you that the matter contained within is of the utmost pertinence and paramountcy. Since our last meeting nearly a year’s time ago, I have been commissioned to research the secondary fellows with which we share this wide earth: our endangered magical creatures. The details of this work are not the sole topic of this letter, so I will spare you. I only include this information to give exposition to the situation in which I currently find myself._

_My research has required travels to a great many places wherein magical relations between these countries and our own Ministry are strained or unestablished. Indeed, many places wherein the relations between magical and non-magical persons remain to depths of persecution and ostracism._

_Currently, I am positioned in the Sudanese desert, amongst a non-magical tribe that harbors a girl of great magical ability. Unfortunately, her gifts were regarded as a heresy to her people, and with no other living family to speak of, she has been sequestered to a meager shelter and isolated from human contact._

_My help was sought when she became a danger to her village under the development of an Obscurus force due the oppression and depression of her magic._

_To come to my motivations for contacting you, the people of this village find the continued presence of this girl to be a danger to their wellbeing, and I do not disagree. The Obscurus force has become uncontrollable, by myself or the girl’s own will. The force itself has targeted one female villager who instigated a minor physical altercation with my charge._

_Continued subjection to this environment will not benefit the girl, nor her separation from the energy she hosts._

_I believe there may be help available in England, or perhaps somewhere near. Any stable and routine environment that allows her to be gently cared for and her magic safely curbed._

_I would like to oversee her placement in a safe home or institution for the rehabilitation of such magical maladies._

_I choose to write to you on the matter, because I recall your predilection for children’s justices, especially those Muggle born and your wishes to expand these regulations as we discussed last year at the Ministry’s Winter’s Ball. I understand that these matters are not your direct line of work within the Ministry, and I do not neglect to think you do not remember having met me at all. All I ask is that you please communicate my requests to your supervisor, or other colleague that will provide the speediest response and return an answer to my requests accordingly._

_I believe that her time and my time remaining here is limited. I have petitioned the village for more time to make these arrangements, but the lengths of her power if left untended is unknown, and puts these people at further risk. For her safety and theirs, I must request that you respond to this letter as soon as possible._

_Thank you for your service,  
_ _Newton Scamander_

-O-O-

Later in the afternoon once his letter was written and sent, he found her crying, tears streaked over her dark cheeks, teeth bared against a pain he could not locate.

“I-I will take you away from this. You will be safe. I promise,” he told her, combing a lock of her thick, wiry hair behind her ear.

He watched her, held her, even as her eyes rolled and her body jolted against the force within.

Hours passed, and the letter was forgotten as her skin grew clammy. The restraints under which he found himself were far from his mind. Instead, he attempted to give her comfort by reciting the story of the Fountain of Fair Fortune from memory as she drifted between exhaustion and pain.

There must’ve been a reason why her condition worsened upon the woman’s death, or an explanation of how she manifested the power to commit the act while never stepping from the tent. These were scientific questions he could evaluate later. For now he went for water and pressed her to drink when her twitching was minor enough to touch her.

It went on into the evening. It was then that he was certain something was not right. He saw her through several seizure-like episodes, and wondered how many times she must’ve faced this alone.

He wished for something to cease it all, to relieve her and see her back to the smiling and playful spirit he had only just been introduced to.

He tried another story. In vain.

After, she sought for his hand, and whispered. “Sea?”

He leaned close to hear her bell of a voice, and felt his eyes prick. “Yes. Would you like me to tell you about it? It seems to go on as far as you can see, rather like a desert…”

Her eyes rolled. He gripped her hand tighter, holding her fast.

“But the air is cool and sharp. Instead of sand, there’s water forever…”

She twisted away, doubling over.

“Water!” he exclaimed, standing, fumbling in his haste to stave her pain. “Take some water…”

Before he could reach the canteen, the black mist had swirled into a thick shape, veiling her within it.

“Sabra…” Bravely, he reached into it’s circle.

Something like razored claws drew over his forearm.

Her sobs rung out limp beneath the curtains of the tent, shrouded in the whistle of the mist. He chanced a glance at his injury, bloodied streaks fresh and bright. She was protecting him, he realized, stepping back a distance.

“Listen…” he asked, not loudly at all. “Sabra, listen to me. This is not who you are. There is another part of you that is good. You are good.”

Magic twinged in the air around him, raw and angry.

Within the misty cloud, he caught a glimpse of her arched taught.

“Pull it into yourself.,” he tried, more sternly. “You control it, it doesn’t control you. Try, Sabra.”

It expanded, spewing around the entirety of the little shelter. Newt ducked, drawing his arms over his head.

There was a long scream, a sound beating like thunder and wind, and then silence.

He looked up.

The manifested Obscurus had retreated to the top of the tent, looming like an ever watching eye. It had detatched. It had wrung itself from her frame and left her prone.

As soon as he could mange, he crawled over to her on hands and knees, pulling her limp figure against him.

“Sabra? Look at me…look…”

There was a coldness in her eyes, but her lips moved in a soundless word.

He grasped for her hand. Gasped for a breath against the squeezing of his throat.

He did not need to make examinations. Her clouding eyes told what he needed to know.

“…sea…” she begged.

“That’s right,” he choked, sucking a breath. “You will love it, I’m certain.” He blinked against tears, sending them dripping into her hair.

He pulled her close, like a babe, tears soaking the shoulder of her musty little dress, until her breath finally stilled, the faintest whisper against his ear.

-O-O-

It was dawn when he emerged to the din of villagers going about their morning chores. Some of them looked. Some of them whispered behind hands. He had nothing to say. Nothing to mend. He let the tent flap whisp against the morning breeze, cradling the body against his chest, wrapped in the bed mat.

If he were a man of weaker countenance, he would find no fault in cursing them. And he regreted, this one time, that he was not.

-O-O-

The letter found him on his way on foot back to Egypt. He waded the desert with a shirt wound over his brow like a sheikh, thirsty and indifferently lost when his grey and white bird swooped to his shoulder, dutifully poking his talon out to be relieved of its parcel.

The message was short:

_Newton Scamander_  
_The Sudan, or vicinity_

_Mr. Scamander,_

_Thank you for your insight into the African and Sudanese cultures as they affect our proceedings, magical and non-magical alike._

_I regret to inform you that your request for placement for your patient cannot be considered at this time, by this department or any other. As you describe it, her manifestation of an Obscurus is far too complicated and dangerous for our Ministry to undertake, especially as a matter of international cooperation between her birth country and ours._

_I wish you continued luck on your travels, and hope for the girl’s health and wellbeing._

_Thank you for your inquiry,_  
_Jane Elsinore, Department of International Magical Cooperation_

He shredded it after a second read, sending it fluttering away into the bluster of the desert.

-O-O-

Some years later…

 

“Daddy! I brought you a present!” A girl that has somehow inherited Theseus’ blonde waves bounds up the steps to where he sits, book laid in his lap. She holds out a tiny flower, thin with white petals. He blinks.

It is intensely familiar, and at first he cannot recall how.

He reaches to pinch it between his fingers, and there it is. The echo of a laugh he had heard only once or twice, there sheathed in the back of his mind. The memory of a time long ago, a land far away…

“Thank you, my dear one. Its beautiful.” He tucks it into the breast pocket of his waistcoat and kisses her crown.

Behind her, on shorter and chubbier legs, a boy runs, a mop of dark hair and outstretched hands that beg to be held. He lifts him and cuddles him into his side.

“Lunchtime,” their mother declares, her brown bobbed hair swinging about her ears when she pokes her head around the back door of their cottage.

She took their son into her arms, peering at her husband curiously.

“You ok?” she asked when he passed over the threshold.

“Perfect, darling. Absolutely perfect.” He leans to kiss her cheek, hand at his pocket where the flower was nestled, safe and sound.

**Author's Note:**

> This was so immensely hard to write. I wish I could tell you all about the process, but its too long. I worked on this longer than I've ever worked on anything. I hope you gleaned something from it. I listened to Sleeping and Last and the Red Violin motion picture soundtrack heavily during writing and thinking about this piece...(If you haven't heard of the Red Violin, watch it and experience the most haunting music you've ever heard). 
> 
> Comment if you liked, and make me happy because this was sad :/
> 
> ( tumblr: @allscissorsallpaper )


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